Silent Witness (4 page)

‘Your arm's not that bad,' Sam said. ‘But like Joe said – my brother – if you don't have your weight right, you short-arm it. No zip, no distance.'

Knowing that the words were those not of a fourteen-year-old but of his now dead older brother, Tony was struck by how much stake Sam's family must have placed in his success. For the first time, Tony sensed Sam's generosity; losing the quarterback spot would cost much more in this family than in Tony's.

‘Your turn,' Sam told him.

Tony began throwing, Sam standing by him with hands on hips, offering terse pointers. Tony went seven for ten.

At the end, Sam nodded without comment, tossing the ball underhand to Tony. ‘Sideline,' he said, ran out a few feet, then sped toward a bed of roses along the left side of the yard.

Tony threw.

The ball sailed lazily over Sam's head. Sam picked up speed, trying to catch it, and then suddenly broke stride, leaping over the rosebushes as the ball thudded to the ground beyond him.

Behind them, a screen door squeaked open. Suddenly shrill, Dottie Robb's voice called out, ‘Watch the roses – those are my babies.'

They turned. She faced them, leaning against the frame with both hands. Standing near the rose bed, Sam faced her, reddening in silent acknowledgment. Only Tony could hear him mumble, ‘Fuck you,' under his breath.

Satisfied, Dottie Robb closed the door. Tony wondered how long she had been watching. Or drinking.

‘Do it again,' Sam said. ‘A little less arc on the ball, okay? And don't ruin her stupid roses.'

With a mixture of solidarity and pride, Tony answered, ‘I'm at my best in the clutch.' The next four passes were close to perfect.

‘All right,' Sam said abruptly. ‘We need a play. Someday in high school, some big game will be on the line and it'll be up to me and you.' Sam paused, eyes on Tony, smiling for the first time. ‘I'm going to be the greatest pass-catching end in the history of Lake City High School. You'll need one.'

Tony studied him to see if he was joking. Sam stopped smiling. ‘The other guys like you,' he said bluntly. ‘They'll play for you. But you're going to need me.'

Tony felt something poignant in Sam's admission, and in his desire to cover it with braggadocio. ‘Run a sideline pattern,' Tony said at length. ‘Like we've been doing. Only hip fake the guy covering you and cut back over the middle, deep.'

Sam flipped the ball back to Tony.

Tony paused, trying to visualize what he wanted. The day – the soft light of late afternoon, the deepening green of the grass and trees – faded around him. What was vivid was the moment he wanted to create.

He sensed Sam waiting patiently, as if he understood. ‘Go,' Tony said.

Sam ran left toward the roses. Tony skittered back, light on his feet now, avoiding an imaginary tackler by running to his right.

Abruptly, Sam broke for the middle of the yard. Tony stopped at once, lofting the ball over Sam's head and to his right. Sam followed its flight, running as hard as he could as the ball slowly fell. With a last burst, Sam grasped the football in his fingertips.

He glided to a stop and turned, holding the ball aloft. For a moment, it seemed to Tony that Sam was no longer there but hearing an imagined crowd, which called his name. His eyes were half shut.

They opened abruptly. ‘Touchdown,' Sam called out to Tony. ‘That's the play.'

Their moment had come.

That Alison watched from the stands, or Tony's parents, meant nothing to him; Jack Parham's injury meant only the advantage of a time-out. As he ran to the sidelines, passing the cheerleaders, Tony was barely aware of Sue Cash's wave of encouragement, her curly brown hair and bright smile, the faint smell of her perfume as the cheer she led sang out.
We are the Lakers, the mighty, mighty Lakers
 . . .

On the sidelines, Coach Jackson was pacing and staring at the clock, plainly dying for a cigarette. At forty-five, he had already suffered a heart attack, and only smoking kept the pounds off his thick-chested body. His narrow snake eyes stared at Tony from a red, sclerotic face.

‘What do you want to run?' he demanded.

Tony told him.

Jackson's eyes widened, the look he used to intimidate. ‘Sam's been covered all night.'

Tony shrugged. ‘So they won't expect it.'

Something like amusement crossed Jackson's face, a bone-deep liking for the boy in front of him, his own pride in judging character. These were the moments, Tony realized, that Coach Jackson lived for.

‘Just win the goddamned game,' Jackson said.

As Tony led the offense onto the field, a Riverwood player and a trainer were helping Jack Parham to the sidelines. Trotting next to Tony, Sam said, ‘That felt good – a fumble and a time-out.'

There was a primal joy in Sam's voice, adrenaline pumping. As the offense huddled, Tony paused to look at each of them – the offensive linemen; Sam; the muscular fullback, Johnny D'Abruzzi, Tony's friend from Holy Name; Ernie Nixon, the half back, the only black in high school. Their faces were taut, anxious. Tony kept his tone matter-of-fact.

‘We're gonna take this one play at a time. No fumbles, no penalties. No losing our head or trying to be heroes. We just do what we need to do, and the game belongs to us. I'll worry about the clock.'

The team seemed to settle down. Tony called the play and they broke the huddle, taking their positions with an air of confidence. Standing behind them, Tony looked at the defense. The clock still read one-nineteen; it would not start until the center snapped the ball.

Tony stepped behind the center, aware of the screaming crowd only as a distant noise, feeling Johnny D'Abruzzi in back of him, Ernie Nixon to his right. He began barking signals.

The ball slipped into his hands. With the first pop of shoulder pads, the linemen's grunts of pain and anger and aggression, Tony spun and handed the ball to Ernie Nixon.

Ernie hit the line slanting to the left, then burst through a hole for five more yards until a Riverwood linebacker stuck his helmet in Ernie's chest and drove him to the ground.

The next play, a run by Johnny D'Abruzzi, gained almost nothing.

‘
Time
,' Tony shouted at the referee. Only then did he look at the clock.

Forty-four seconds. He had just used their last time-out.

The team huddled around Tony, Johnny D'Abruzzi screaming, ‘Give me the ball again. . . .' Stepping between them, Sam clutched Tony's jersey, his face contorted with panic and frustration. ‘I'm open. You've gotta start throwing – we're running out of time.'

Tony gazed at Sam's hands, stifling his own anger. ‘There's plenty of time,' he said. His tone said something else:
This isn't our moment
.

They stared at each other, and then Sam dropped his hands. Tony turned to the others as if nothing had happened. His heart pounded.

‘All right.' He looked into Johnny D'Abruzzi's fierce eyes and made his judgment. ‘We're running Johnny again, this time through the left side. Then I'll run an option.'

He saw Sam's astonishment, Ernie Nixon's disappointment; ignoring them both, he called the numbers for the next two plays. But when the huddle broke, he grasped Ernie's sleeve. ‘I'm counting on you to cut down the left side linebacker.'

‘I'll do it.'

Turning, Tony ambled behind the center with deceptive casualness. Then he suddenly barked, ‘Hut three,' and the ball was in his hand, then in Johnny D'Abruzzi's arms as he ran to the left behind Ernie Nixon. Ernie shot through the line; with a fierceness that was almost beautiful, he coiled his body and slammed shoulder-first into Riverwood's right linebacker, knocking him backward as Johnny ran past and then tripped, suddenly and completely, over the legs of the falling player.

‘Shit,' Tony said under his breath. The clock read thirty-one, thirty, twenty-nine. Still twenty yards to go . . .

The blue bodies scurried up from the turf to re-form along the line of scrimmage. Twenty-two seconds . . .

The center snapped the ball to Tony.

He ran along the line, with Ernie Nixon trailing him. His option was to run himself or flip the ball to Ernie.

As the crowd began screaming, a wave of blockers formed in front of Tony.

Ernie was behind him to the outside, in good position for a pitchout. But Tony could see the play opening up for him; ten yards down the sideline and then out of bounds, stopping the clock again. The screams rose higher as he crossed the line of scrimmage.

From nowhere a red jersey appeared at the corner of Tony's vision – Rex Stallworth, their quickest linebacker. Tony heard the crunch of Stallworth's helmet into the side of his face before the shock shivered his body and dropped him into darkness.

The next sensation that came to him was the smell of dirt and grass. Tony rose to his knees, time lost to him.

‘Tony!' Sam cried out.

By instinct, Tony looked up at the clock.

Sixteen seconds, fifteen, fourteen. Tony staggered to his feet and loped to the center of the field. ‘Spike,' he shouted. ‘On one.'

Raggedly, the line took its position. ‘
Ten
,' the Riverwood fans started chanting. ‘
Nine
 . . .'

‘
One
,' Tony screamed. The ball was only a second in his hands before he spiked it to the ground. An incomplete pass, stopping the clock.

Five seconds left.

Tony backed from the line of scrimmage, taking deep breaths. He was nauseous, dizzy. His head rang.

Sam was the first one to reach him. ‘You okay?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Gotta pass to me, Tony.
Please
.'

The team circled him again. Tony shook his head to clear it, then said to no one in particular, ‘Screwed that play up, didn't I? Sonofabitch rang my bell for Parham.'

Tony felt their quiet relief. Only Sam seemed too tight.

‘Okay,' Tony said. ‘We've got five seconds, twenty yards, no time-outs. Time to put this game away.' He paused, looking at everyone but Sam. ‘Thirty-five reverse pass.'

The huddle broke. Under his breath, Tony said to Sam, ‘It's ours now, pal.'

Sam nodded, ready. For the last time, they walked to the line with their team.

Tony paused, taking it all in – the crowd, the light and darkness, the blue line of team-mates, the red formation across from them shouting jeers and insults. And then he shut out everything but what he meant to do.

Time slowed for him. The cadence of his own voice seemed to come from somewhere else. But there was no other place that Tony wished to be.

‘Hut two . . .'

The ball popped into his hand.

Tony slid the ball into Ernie Nixon's stomach. Bent forward, Ernie plowed into the line in feigned determination as Tony pulled back the ball, spun, and slapped it into Johnny D'Abruzzi's chest.

But only for an instant.

Johnny stood upright, crashing shoulder-first into a blitzing linebacker who was headed straight for Tony. And then Tony was alone, sprinting with the ball along the right side of the line.

In front of him, he saw bodies scrambling – two linebackers running parallel to block his path, believing he would run for the end zone, his own blockers forming in front of him.

Without seeming to look, Tony saw Sam break to the left sideline. Sam looked irrelevant, a decoy, so far was he from the sweep of the play.

Abruptly, Sam broke back across the center of the field, three feet ahead of the back who covered him.

Perfect, Tony thought.

All at once he stopped, cocking the ball to throw. The crowd cried out in warning.

From Tony's blind side Stallworth charged for him, head down.

Tony jerked back the ball, scrambling forward. As Stallworth swept, by, his outstretched arm grasped Tony's ankle.

Tony stumbled, losing his balance. Then he caught his fall, left hand digging into the grass.

Ahead of him, two more linemen charged forward. Tony had nowhere to go. He could not see Sam; if he tried to pass, he would be defenseless against the onrushing tacklers.

Tony stood straight, cocked his arm, and threw, with his weight on his front foot, toward where he thought Sam's speed would take him. The ball left his hand an instant before the first defender hit Tony's unprotected ribs.

Tony felt his insides shift; the pain went through him as he hit the ground. By instinct he rolled on his side, sat up.

The ball arched above the players who turned to watch it, helpless. Its flight seemed to slow, a sphere sailing through light and shadow toward the rear of the end zone, accompanied by shrieks of hope and uncertainty.

I've overthrown it, Tony thought, and then he saw Sam Robb.

Seemingly without a chance, Sam sprinted for the ball as it fell to earth. Three feet from the ball, two feet from the back of the end zone, Sam timed his leap.

It took him parallel to the ground, feet leaving the grass as he stretched, arms extended, and clasped the ball in his fingertips. He fell beyond the end zone, feet trailing in a last effort to touch in-bounds. Tony could not see whether he had done so; he saw only, as Sam rose to his feet and turned to the referee, that the ball was in his hands.

Tony stood, pain forgotten as he gazed at the referee, a silent prayer forming in his head.

Slowly, the referee raised his hands aloft.

A lump blocked Tony's throat.

Touchdown. Mother of God, a touchdown. He began to run toward Sam.

Sam stood in the end zone, arms aloft, clutching the ball in his hand. Above him, the scoreboard registered six more points for Lake City. Sam's helmet was off; beneath the klieg lights, Tony could see the tears on his face.